Cutting through the artifice and affectations of life to see the world for what it is

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Sexual attraction is racism

Historically, we have proven a very myopic species. Whenever we collectively come to the realization that some facet of our culture is destructive, we never attempt to extrapolate from that realization, and instead pass it on to the next generation as "tradition" to be memorized and subsequently parroted without regard for its fundamental essence, or what essence of which it is a manifestation.

Oh, gladiatorial combat is a bad thing, too? Yeah, that makes sense. Well, it's been a few thousand years since our last decree and all, but it's still a good thing that we figured this one out. We're set now, right?

What? Don't tell me that slavery is wrong, too! Jeez, nothing fun is acceptable, is it? Well, at least we're making progress. We deserve a pat on the back, now.

You've got to be kidding me. You mean that even though other races get paid for their labor, now, they should have access to the same resources as us? Fine. That sort of makes sense. Hey, it only took us a hundred years to knock this one out. Contrast that with the few thousand that it took last time! We're obviously becoming more progressive and rational as a species.

But don't you dare propose that gay people should be allowed to get married. That is absolutely off limits.

Upon making the realization that humans shouldn't be forcefully and selfishly sacrificed to the gods, it shouldn't take much time at all to realize that homosexuals should have access to the same resources and institutions as heterosexuals. Why does each of these realizations take so long to make, in spite of their occupying the same fundamental value space?

The problem is that the realization is never that sentience is the kernel of value, or that symbolic cultural assumptions need to be rigorously and scientifically challenged; instead, it's that mass murder should not be a form of entertainment, or that blacks are people, too. In reality, these latter phenomena are just surface manifestations of the former; if eating food that tastes good is important, then we should realize this in the fundamental sense rather than make the claim that because we once ate a good-tasting apple, eating apples is important.

Of course, the above analogy gets into the nature of variability and value equations, but this blog has hit on those concepts enough by now, I think. Just keep in mind that after gay marriage, there's the right to die, and after that, there's outlawing impregnation, and after that, there's the idea that sexual attraction is racism.

When it comes to sexual attraction, we can abstract the focal qualities of an individual into two primary categories:

1. Those qualities which sexually attract us to the individual

2. Those qualities which make the individual a valid companion capable of making calculated, informed decisions and being rational overall (which increases the likelihood of the individual understanding us, reciprocating during conversations, and enjoying our company)

In the case of category 2., the individual needn't even be part of the particular gender or age bracket to which we are sexually attracted, underlying the ultimate superficiality of sex. This should come as no surprise to "antinatalists," however -- that is, if they've embraced the idea that the phenomenon of sexual reproduction is fruitless, aimless, and insipid.

It's important to understand, here, that at a racist organization, the above two categories are very much the same in the abstract, but manifest in physical substance as the following:

1. Those qualities which we have culturally -- and, to a much lesser extent, genetically -- come to embrace or find symbolic security in, due in part to the evolutionary power of xenophobia

2. Those qualities which make the individual a hard worker capable of filling the role offered at our organization

Big tits and a cute laugh are to human companionship what light skin and Caucasian facial features are to corporate employment. If you want your company to do as well as it can, then hire people based on their skills rather than their skin color; if you want your social life to be as fulfilling as it can be, then live and share your life with interesting and intelligent people rather than sexually attractive ones. We should have figured this out as soon as we stopped rolling human heads down pyramid steps, but, well, we suck.

10 comments:

Sexual attraction isn't really racism: the problem is that sex and cohabitation / companionship are mixed up. Sex is more fun with sexier people. =D Living together with sexier people isn't always more tolerable.

The problem with this way of thinking is that the elderly, physically disabled, mentally disabled, physically deformed, or just plain ugly are failures when it comes to sexual flings; in the rare cases where they succeed at finding a sexual partner, it's because of a mental trait. In humans, there is a genetic correlation between sex and emotional attachment to others, meaning that if you want to avoid the correlation, you either suppress your emotions while pursuing empty sexual flings, or you condition yourself to lack empathy -- both for your objectified sexual partners and for those too physically unfortunate to be "allowed" to participate. Over time, the former lack of empathy may result in a rise in narcissism and general disregard for the welfare of others, while the latter may result in jealousy and depression from the other side.

In short, humans desiring humans is fundamentally different from humans desiring inanimate objects, and unless everyone is allowed to join the club, the club shouldn't exist.

Side note: There is still a lack of empathy for people of other age brackets, genders, or with deformities when it comes to more serious, intimate relationships. The point is that neither option eliminates the problem.

I was clearly referencing the elderly as mentioned in the first sentence of the preceding comment. Instead of opening your mouth as soon as "ammo" pops into your head, consider whether 1. it's going to make you look stupid and 2. it's being loaded into your cannon only to serve a personal agenda (e.g. trolling, fishing for a comment to post on a forum for detached, anonymous voyeurs to reinforce their bubble world with, etc.). You might want to consider reading the following, starting at the linked heading: Confirmation Bias - Biased search for information

Can anyone explain to me why it's okay for a heterosexual person to devote more time and compassion to a sexually attractive but less rational person of the opposite sex than to a more rational person of the same sex? If our jobs are as important as we pretend they are and are really making a contribution to the world, shouldn't we be living with our coworkers and "loving" them?

You've made a somewhat reductive interpretation of how discrimination (and in particular, employment discrimination) works.

"If you want your company to do as well as it can, then hire people based on their skills rather than their skin color"

Consider this thought experiment:

You are a (white) employer in a community which for whatever reason, doesn't like black people. A black person applies for a public facing job. You have no issues with black people personally, and know both applicants are equally skilled HOWEVER in such a job you know the person won't do as well as a white employee would because of the present prejudice (customers won't like him as much as a white person. The police will hassle him unnecessarily, ect).

This is often how racism perpetuates, not because people are acting "irrationally", but because so long as they are operating within a racist system it is RATIONAL from their self interested perspective to perpetuate it.

Thats not an excuse for racism obviously, but its important to acknowledge that the causes of racism are usually a lot more difficult than that people are simply being unthinkingly prejudiced.

The general association between sexual attraction and racial-social-economic attraction was intentionally reductive for the sake of metaphor.

I completely agree with your assessment of the systematic perpetuation of social practices. I do think, however, that such practices are not "the causes of racism" so much as they are the perpetuation of prejudiced selection; one needn't be a racist in order to prefer whites over blacks in a society existing under a racist paradigm.

A system incorporating racism into its structure does not cause racism; racism causes a system incorporating racism into its structure. Someone, somewhere had to actually be a racist at some point.

How can all of this be prevented? Transparency and peer review. If you realize that a particular black person is better equipped to perform a job than his or her white competitor -- even when the current social paradigm is promulgating racism -- so long as the society is backed by honesty, open communication, agile methodologies, and eliminating bias via the interaction between previously unacquainted parties, then your public objection to racism will quickly gain merit.

This is how we should proceed in the future for all notions, whether newly emerged or preconceived.

On the note above, in this iteration of society, it makes practical sense to get into sexual relationships -- but only if you're in an environment where living alone is socially ostracizing to the point of affecting quality of life. Even then, there needs to be an awareness of divorce rates, economic autonomy, the increasing pervasiveness of high expectations, rises in narcissism and individualism, etc.

To sum up: You might have valid reasons for enjoying a beautiful woman's company, but those valid reasons are not -- at least not solely -- the cause of your sexual attraction to her, making the sexual attraction utterly irrelevant to your intellectual attraction. On top of this, the sexual attraction is going to skewer opportunity cost in the social sphere beyond reasonable levels, and probably cause you to waste your time chasing nonexistent ideals.

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I'm not here to gain "followers." I don't care about people paying me undue attention, nor do I expect it. Whenever I stumble upon an idea that I think is good, I'll want to share it in order to make Earth a more pleasant locale, not in order to secure some opportunistic vantage point for myself. If you value benevolence, want to fix sentience, and see virtue in squashing the endless pursuit of transient brain states, get in touch. Email: leavingsocietybehind@gmail.com